Seeing the Flames
by FallingDomino
Summary: In the beginning, it was Diana and her younger brother, but when coming across Rick's group in the midst of Sophia's disappearance, she is determined to earn her and her brother a place within the gang. Though Diana seems smart if a bit arrogant, what kind of trouble will she accidentally stir up messing with Rick's feelings when he is already having problems with Lori and zombies?


One: In the Distance  


The hottest day of the year. Why did it have to be the hottest day of the year? What's even worse was that it was the hottest day of the year during a zombie apocalypse. Now that put a damper down on Diana Hale's day.

She and her younger brother, Luke, were trudging through the highway graveyard with the thousands of cars that were completely immobile and occasionally held a dead body. It was sad admitting that the sight and smell of death was beginning to grow on Diana. Before the whole world had gone to shit, she had only seen a dead body once, and that was when they were bringing her mother's body out of the Ruberry River four years ago.

_Just keep going, just keep going, _she would keep repeating in her head. The conditions were extremely uncomfortable, besides the obvious. Her dark chestnut hair was tied back in a messy and uncomfortable bun. It was too dirty and greasy to leave down and in the very least, it would just get in her way. If only she had some scissors and she could be done with it.

She might have been able to even put up with the blazing sun in the cloudless sky if she could just have a shower. A nice hot, soothing shower and some shampoo and conditioner. The thought was almost more tempting than finding food and water for her aching stomach.

She knew she looked disgusting not having showered in over a few weeks, bathing only occasionally by a river or small pond she and Luke had found. Her hair was slightly matted and her skin was starting to become what she knew would be a nasty sunburn.

Still, though robbed of most possessions and necessities, the siblings could at least say they had a plan. Though they had no car, they were walking down the highway to the CDC, following the directions that Luke was reading from the Georgia map.

All they had to do was keep following down the highway and they would eventually come across the building. The only other problem was, besides the biters, was that they had no means of transport, food, water, or shelter. They couldn't root through the cars because carrying a lot of luggage would become stressful.

They found a few water bottles or granola bars once in a while, but strangely, Diana found herself possibly even more hungry after eating them.

They hadn't encountered many biters which was nothing short of a miracle, but Diana still wouldn't loosen her grip over the silver pistol she held in her right hand. Searching for biters kept her mind off the dryness creeping in her throat or the terrible peeling on her lips that were drying even further in the beam of the sun.

"How much farther do you think?" she inquired of her brother who's face was hidden from the map he held in his hands. Luke pushed his broken rectangular glasses further up his nose and frowned.

"By foot? Um . . . maybe another day."

Diana had to resist groaning. The day was a little more than half over, and they couldn't risk taking too many breaks; they had to get there as soon as possible. But the thought of walking another few hours in direct sunlight was nothing short of terrifying, even more so than the biters.

As far as the biters were concerned, Diana wasn't too worried as long as she had a gun in her hand and they didn't travel in packs.

The sun was just barely setting but its prominent burn kept itself known as it casted its rays onto the earth below. Diana was beginning to be genuinely concerned for how much water they were ingesting. There was a constant dry spot in the middle of her tongue that refused to moisten and only a few hours ago on one of their short breaks her urine had a slight brownish color, two of the many signs of serious dehydration.

"Hey . . . what's that?" whispered Luke, lowering the map and placing his hand over his brows to shield his eyes from the sun.

Diana noticed it too, but only a second before Luke mentioned it.

Biters. Perhaps a hundred of them, making their sloppy slouches down the highway and right towards them. Panic took over Diana for a split second and out of instinct she rose her gun and pointed it in the general direction of the walking dead.

But then common sense came back to her. She couldn't take out this many biters with the few and valuable ammo she still contained.

"Hide," she uttered, barely able to let the word escape her chapped lips.

"_Where?" _he whispered back.

"Under the car," she said, ushering him under a green Subaru. She glanced over her shoulder at the herd of biters walking closer and closer towards them, wandering aimlessly with many of their necks slightly crooked with their dead eyes staring unseeingly ahead.

The closest was about ten yards away. Diana heaved a great breath and ducked under the car with Luke. She intertwined her fingers with his the second she pressed herself protectively against him, pressing the side of her face against the concrete. Her other hand still clenched the silver gun tightly between her sweaty fingers.

Not more than a minute later did they watch a pair of rotting legs sluggishly walk past their hiding spot, the owner of them emitting its terrible gurgling and hungry noises. Not soon after did many, many more follow the first.

Diana and Luke waited for any potential fate to hit them as they watched with fearful eyes as the hundred dead people trudged on past them, but in the minutes that contained hours, nothing happened.

Diana listened to the harsh breath of her brother as it brushed against her sunburned neck, waiting for the passing of dead legs to cease. After a long, five minutes, it did. But she wasn't convinced. She closed her eyes, swallowed, then counted to two-hundred in her head.

Only one straggler was left behind. After counting to another thirty, she nodded her head to the outside of the car and helped Luke to his feet.

"There were so many," he murmured, straightening his glasses once more, brow furrowing over his hazel eyes in the harsh, sudden sunlight.

"A party," Diana agreed. She looked down the road in the direction the biters had traveled from, looking for the possibility of any more. She didn't see any, but she did see _something. _"Luke, hand me your binoculars," she said quickly.

Luke complied at once, unwrapping the expensive black binoculars that they had taken from a _Big 5 _from his neck. She raised them to her eyes, searching the roads ahead of her.

And she saw them. She couldn't make out how many there were, but even in the distance, she could tell that they weren't dead. For the first time in six months, besides her own brother, she saw people that didn't have scabs, or haven blood dripping from their mouths.

She lowered the binoculars and turned to Luke.

"People," was all she could say. She watched his eyes widen slightly behind the cracked lenses.

They were suddenly running, both ignoring the jabbing stitches in their sides and breathing raspingly out of their parched throats. Diana wanted to scream for help, not caring if these people were friendly or not, but judged against it considering she didn't want another visit from the biters.

Their appearance did not go unknown however when they got closer. Almost the second she could see one of the people with her own eyes, she found a gun pointed in her face.

"Hold it!" the man ordered, making the pair stop in their tracks. He was tall, with dark curly hair with matching-colored eyes. His thick brows were pushed together firmly as he studied the brother and sister.

More people showed up, most of them with weapons. One was wearing a policemen uniform and holding a shotgun, another with a crossbow, and one dark skinned man with a nasty gash in his forearm, looking faint but alarmed.

"And just who in the Sam hell are you?" demanded the first, pointing his gun directly at Diana. She raised her eyebrows.

"Calm down, cowboy," she said steadily. "I don't mean any harm."

"My friend asked who you are," said the one in the uniform. Diana noted he sounded a little less angry but more weary. She understood this but couldn't help glaring slightly at the scene of the many mean pointing weapons at her and her little brother.

Some women showed up too, one with short, grayish hair looking practically miserable with tears running down from her red, puffy eyes. She and Luke had obviously run in on some event.

"My name is Diana," she said in almost mock-friendliness, as if trying to explain to a toddler how to be polite when meeting someone. "This is my little brother, Luke."

"Lower your weapon," the one with the crossbow ordered flatly. She shot him a look but otherwise obliged, stashing her gun in her belt and raising her hands up in gesture of surrender.

"Either of you bit?" asked the first. Diana met his eyes firmly, then shook her head.

"No."

"Prove it," ordered the first.

She casted him a disgusted look.

"I'm not about to strip for you," she said. None of them responded. She breathed out of her nose. "Do you see any blood on me?"

"Seems clean," muttered crossbow guy. "But are her intentions?"

Diana glared. "I'm not about to attack you. Even if I did, it's only my brother and I. I may be a little naïve at times, but I'm not a fool. There's only two of us and I'm the only one that knows how to work a gun."

"Maybe," said the one in uniform. "We barely see another face anymore that doesn't have flesh between its teeth, so you can't blame us for being paranoid."

"Then maybe you shouldn't be pointin' guns at us," Diana said flatly.

There was a slight hesitance in the way they lowered their weapons. She noted that the dark-haired man was the last to do so.

"What are you doing out here? Where did you come from?" inquired the policeman.

"We're coming from Ruberry," Diana told them quietly. "We were on our way to the CDC, maybe hoping to get some answers. Did you see it on your way down here?"

"What's going on here?" said a voice before any of them could reply. An elderly man with a fatherly face appeared from around the corner of the old RV standing nearby. He registered Diana and Luke. "Who are these people?"

"Stragglers," said the first man, biting down on his lower lip and not taking his eyes off the two newcomers, eying them with a look of high suspicion.

The elderly man studied the pair for a long time, white brows furrowing slightly.

"We can't leave them here," he said finally. "That kid can't be more than twelve."

"Whoa, whoa, who said anything about taking more people in?" demanded the first, peeling his eyes off the siblings at last and glaring at the elder man. "We've got enough people as it is. We fend for ourselves now; we're not a charity community! And on top of it, we got a little girl runnin' around in that forest. We do _not _have time for this!"

"Shane, calm down," uttered the man in uniform. "We can't just throw them back out there. That would be as good as murder."

"Rick, that kind of thinkin' is over," the one called Shane retorted back angrily. "It's a dog eat dog world, and we can't just take every single survivor we find."

"If I could so kindly interrupt?" said Diana, observing Shane with strong distaste. "We didn't mention anything 'bout stayin'. We told you; we're tryin' to get to the CDC."

A long and suffering pause followed her words. She wasn't expecting her comment to hold this kind of affect on the group, and frowned at the lot of them.

"What?"

"The CDC is gone," muttered Rick, glancing towards the woman with long brown hair behind him. She was watching Diana closely, her eyes then traveling to Shane.

Diana felt her insides break.

"You're sure?"

"Dead sure," said Shane harshly.

"We drove away as it exploded into ash," continued Rick quietly.

Diana closed her eyes. She should have known it was too much to hope for. She wanted nothing more than to fall on her knees and pound the ground with her fists and cry like a weeping child, exclaiming how unfair the world is. But instead she opened her eyes and met Rick's gaze.

"You were there?"

He nodded.

"Did you—was there anyone there? Did you find out what happened, or how to solve it?"

Another pause, and Diana waited impatiently, biting her cheek.

"No," he grunted at last. "There was only one doctor on the case and he's dead now, along with any research there might have been. He didn't know why this happened, either."

Diana sighed, running her fingers through her greasy hair.

"Can I take back that thing I said about not wanting to stay with you?" she said finally.

"No," uttered Shane.

"Hold up," said Rick, grabbing hold of Shane's shoulder, looking him in the eye, than glancing towards Diana again. "You said you were good with a gun?"

She hesitated before nodding.

"Then why don't you prove it? A couple hours ago this woman's daughter ran off into the woods after the herd passed us by," he said, pointing to the woman with short hair who was still crying into the shoulder of the other woman with long hair. "We'll need help finding her, and as many people with experience with guns as we can get. You in?"

Diana was slightly taken aback, but determined to prove herself. She nodded, placing her hand on the end of her gun and staring determinately into Rick's eyes.

"Whatever I have to do to keep me and my brother safe, I'll do it."

Shane looked outraged.

"We don't know her," he hissed in low tones towards Rick. He looked slightly agitated at the moment, glancing towards Diana and Luke before back at Shane.

"We're just going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt," he said. Then, leaving an angry Shane behind, he turned to Diana, holding out his hand. "Rick Grimes."

Diana paused for one second before enclosing her hand over his and shaking it firmly.

"Diana Hale."

"Welcome aboard."


End file.
